


take another shot

by unrain



Series: chug, chug, chug [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Fraternity, M/M, Trope Subversion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-13
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-09 09:32:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17404415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrain/pseuds/unrain
Summary: If you do this just right, you could do it all night.





	take another shot

Roland got into a bike accident and broke his wrist.

Andrew blows smoke into Nicky’s face when he’s told, raises a single eyebrow and asks, “Left or right?”

Nicky only splutters and make a good impression of someone trying to cough up their lungs. “Why do you want to kill me? Didn’t you read the link I sent you? Secondhand smoking is just as deadly as smoking itself, if not deadlier. They’ve done multiple studies on this, you know.”

Andrew only raises his other eyebrow.

“Right hand,” Nicky answers eventually. “Why?”

“If I’m going to do this for you,” Andrew says, letting the cigarette fall on the sidewalk and stepping on it to stump it out with one heavy black boot, “I want to make sure he’s as miserable as possible and can’t jerk off.”

“Wow,” Nicky says dryly, pulling up the _I’m-not-angry-just-very-very-disappointed_ voice he perfected when he was 16 and had to babysit the Minyard twins. He looks down at Andrew’s boots. “Littering. How edgy of you. How alpha.”

And then it seems like he realizes what Andrew had said, and his head snaps up, eyes glinting red. “So you’ll do it?” Nicky says, leaning closer to Andrew in his excitement, breathing today’s fish dinner right into Andrew’s face. Before Andrew can growl and push him away, he’s leaning back again, clapping a hand on Andrew’s shoulder. “Okay, okay, you already know the venue and the songs, we’re only doing _Fast Cars Faster Kisses_ , _Multimillionaires_ and _Worth Your While_ , but make sure to go through them a few times before the night. Actually, let’s meet up a few nights before to practice together a few times, just a few run throughs so it really sits, you know. Good, good, this is going to be awesome! Wait, you still have your own guitar, right? I could run back to Roland’s place to get his if you don’t—”

Andrew lets Nicky talk his ear off as they walk through campus to the dorms. Andrew doesn’t stop to let Nicky inside his room, just slams the door shut after him, but to Nicky’s credit, he doesn’t bat an eye and opens the door to let himself in, still talking and showing no signs of stopping.

It’s not until two hours later, when Andrew is finished up with his essay outline and has begun to write the first paragraphs, that Nicky, sprawled on Andrew’s bed, stops up, realizing something else.

“Wait,” he says, dragging the vowels. He laughs, a little high-pitched. “What—Uh, what would you have done if it was Roland’s left wrist?”

  

* * *

 

 

Andrew isn’t really much of a bleeder, but when one of the guitar string snaps under the performance and gets him right across the palm of his hand, well. It gets him good. He tries to stop the immediate bleeding by pressing the hand to his stomach, but what it mostly does is smear his white tee, making it look like he got into a fight.

He waves off Nicky’s concerned face and steps outside to escape the daunting crowd. Leaning against the brick wall by the bar, Andrew ignores the stickiness of his hand and lights up a cigarette. The streets are less crowded now that it is so cold that Andrew can see his own breath puff out white clouds, but it’s very noticeable how the few people that are still out gives Andrew a wide berth, taking the long way around instead of passing directly in front of him.

Andrew can’t quite see himself in the reflections on the dark windows across the street, but he can give it an accurate guess as to how he looks in the eyes of any passersby. Black leather jacket, black boots, all black everything, besides the white tee that’s now smeared with blood. Adrenaline is still pumping in his blood so he’s fairly sure that his eyes must be glinting gold. A feral alpha.

He’s looking down and fumbling around with his lighter, trying to light a second cigarette, when someone comes up, white sneakers coming in view.

“Hey,” White Sneakers say. “Minyard, right?”

Andrew frowns at the familiar voice. Looks up.

It’s Josten.

Now, if people can spot Andrew being an alpha from miles away, Josten is the opposite. He’s in the same frat house as Day, same caliber of jock, an adrenaline junky for exy, but that’s about it. Josten isn’t loud, either in volume or demands. There’s no steel in his voice or in his eyes. His presence isn’t larger than life; no one snaps to attention or stops what they’re doing when he walks into a room.

The first time Andrew met Josten, he thought Josten was a beta. When Andrew looks at Josten right now, wearing a gray hoodie and jeans and blinking at Andrew with a tilted head and a sheepish smile, Andrew thinks that for all intents and purposes, Josten is a beta. Andrew thinks that’s kind of Josten's point.

But then Josten’s eyes glide down Andrew’s body and his smile falters at the sight of the blood, his eyes glinting gold when he looks Andrew dead in the eyes, and Andrew thinks, _ah, there it is_.

“You got into a fight? You look,” Josten says, eyes flicking down and up again and huffing a breath out of his nose, white condense surrounding him, “terrible.”

“You should see the other guy,” Andrew drawls, but he holds up his hand, palm out to show the cut. “Accident. Guitar string snapped.”

Josten blinks and the gold disappears. “Oh,” he says and shifts. “You play? Uh. Okay then. I was going to ask for a favor, but how about this? I have some supplies in my car. I could wash that for you, give you a change of clothes if you need it, if you do something for me.”

“Yeah?” Andrew says. “What?”

And here the sheepish expression comes up again, Josten scrunching up his nose as he rubs the back of his neck. “A guy was supposed to meet me here,” Josten says, nodding his head towards the liquor store across the street. “I was supposed to get some drinks for like, eighty people an hour ago and Kevin will kill me if I’m not back in five, but the other guy hasn’t shown up yet.”

“So,” Andrew says, squinting his eyes trying to figure out the request, “you need extra cash?”

“No,” Josten says, licking his lips but not looking away. “I need an ID.”

Andrew freezes. He lets the cigarette between his fingers fall down on the sidewalk, but he doesn’t move to stump it out. Josten looks down at the cigarette and peers up at Andrew, before stepping closer to step on the cigarette himself. This close, Andrew can smell his cologne. He shudders a little when Josten steps back again, taking the warmth of his body with him.

“How old are you?” Andrew says, pretending his voice isn’t croaking.

Josten blinks at him in surprise, frowning. Then he seems to realize something because he grins. He hurries to look to the side and bite his lip, but it doesn’t really succeed in hiding his amusement.

“Oh, man,” Josten says, his voice full of barely restrained laughter, and Andrew feels himself bristling. Josten is still facing away from Andrew but his eyes keep looking back at Andrew and away again, as if he’s trying to look away but can’t quite help himself. “Your—your fucking face!”

“What,” Andrew snarls, straightening up from where he was leaning against the wall, and now he knows his eyes must be glowing.

Josten doesn’t step back. The smile quiets down, but when he looks back at Andrew again, the amusement hasn’t disappeared. There’s just something else in his eyes too. If Andrew didn’t know better, he’d call it warmth. Maybe even awe.

“Don’t worry,” Josten says, kicking the wall beside Andrew with the side of his foot. “I’m twenty. At most two months younger than you or something. January baby, so. You didn’t have sex with somebody underage.”

Oh. So after six months they’re apparently talking about it.

“Full consent here,” Josten continues. Josten isn’t even talking that loud because he doesn’t have to with how close they’re standing, but Andrew has to fight down the urge to tell him to shut up. They’re still standing outside a bar with full house and talking about this in the middle of an open street. A person could pass by anytime. One of the residents over the bar could just open a window at any point and they would overhear two alphas talking about fucking each other. There’s no plausible deniability with the way Josten’s eyes are glowing now, brilliant gold.

“I mean, we were both drunk, but when you’re in a frat, you kind of learn to space your shots just right, so you kan keep up all night. But I wasn’t even that tipsy,” Josten says, licking his lips _again_ and Jesus. Jesus, someone give the kid a fucking lip balm. “So, maybe I should ask you, actually. You know. About. Yeah.”

“Shut up, Josten,” Andrew says when he finally finds his voice again and he takes it as a win when his voice doesn’t shake. “I’ll be your partner in crime, just. Shut the fuck up.”

Josten smiles and, thank God, steps back, leading the way to his car parked lower down the street. He doesn’t say another word, just opens the trunk to get a small first aid kit. He sits down on the closed trunk, gesturing for Andrew to come closer and it ends up with Andrew standing between Josten’s legs as he gently tends to Andrew’s wound. The way he touches Andrew—softly, almost reverently so—sets Andrew’s teeth on edge. Andrew stares over Josten’s bowed head and pretends he can’t see him give Andrew quick glances the whole time. Andrew doesn’t have to look to know Josten’s eyes are probably gold. They never are—Josten seem to take several measurements for that not to happen. Except around Andrew, sometimes.

Andrew doesn’t know if it’s a completely conscious choice or what.

When Josten finishes up with a band-aid, he jumps off the trunk and opens the car door to get something. He throws it at Andrew, and Andrew catches it on reflex before he realizes what it is.

It’s a hoodie.

“Just so the clerk doesn’t get any ideas,” Josten says, gesturing at the blood on Andrew’s tee.

Andrew raises his brows. “I hope you didn’t train in this.”

“It’s clean,” Josten says, rolling his eyes, “but hey, your choice.”

Andrew takes off his jacket and puts it on over the tee. It’s clean but it still has that undercurrent whaff of cologne that Josten uses and something unique to Josten only. That must be the reason why the cashier in the liquor store keep glancing between Andrew and Josten when they pay up for a year’s worth of alcohol, trying but failing to hide the disgusted turn of their mouth.

Josten doesn’t notice, or maybe he pretends he doesn’t notice, or maybe he really doesn’t care either way, because he doesn’t mention it when Andrew helps him carry the drinks to his car.

“So,” Josten says afterwards, hands in pockets, swinging back and forth on the balls of his feet. “Want to join the party?”

Andrew doesn’t bother answering, just looks at Josten in answer, trying to push _does it look like I’d enjoy a frat party?_ into that one look. Josten looks upwards to the sky for a moment, muttering something under his breath, before seemingly deflating on himself.

“Okay,” Josten says. “Fair. But I could give you a ride to the dorms? It’s on the way.”

“Yeah,” Andrew says only, and gets into the car.

They don’t say anything during the whole ride, letting the radio fill the silence. In front of the dorms, Josten turns the car off and they just sit there in complete darkness for a couple of minutes, almost as if they’re daring each other to be the first one to break the silence.

Josten breaks it first with a deep sigh.

“I wish,” he whispers in the space between them, “that I’d known you earlier.”

“To avoid all this bullshit?” Andrew says, and by bullshit he means the fear of someone eavesdropping on them, the disgusted looks the cashier gave them. The fact that everyone either presents in their late teens or doesn’t at all, and the fact that of any possible combination, the both of them had to present as alphas. Andrew laughs, but it’s humorless. “Yeah, maybe.”

“No,” Josten says, and from his peripheral view, Andrew can tell Josten’s shaking his head. “No. Just to have known you longer.”

Andrew opens his mouth to answer, but every word gets shot dead in his throat. On some level, Andrew thinks he could keep Josten like this with him for the rest of the night. That Josten would let him. Just sitting in the car, talking. Biding their time together. If only Andrew musters the right words, the right actions.

But Josten’s just too potent and Andrew already feels a little dizzy, a little bit out of control. Or maybe it's the blood loss. He kind of doubts that. So Andrew swallows, opens the car door.

“Night,” he says, moving to get out of the car, “Josten.”

“Neil,” Josten says.

Andrew turns around, legs already halfway out of the door.

“You can call me Neil,” Josten says. “I mean, we’re kinda—”

“Neil,” Andrew says. “Good night.”

Neil bites his lip. Smiles, a little subdued but still warm, eyes glinting that brilliant shade of gold. “Good night, Andrew.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted 2018-09-29
> 
> saw someone asking for this so. here it is! comments and kudos are greatly appreciated!!!! 😔😔😔💕


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